A time capsule of the greatest financial mania in the history of mankind, told in real-time by regular folks and patriots. May future generations better understand the madness of crowds, and how power and money corrupt.

if the laguna hills average household income is about $100k, shouldn't people spend about no more than $250k on a residence using traditional loan guidelines? maybe they should spend even less for a condo as opposed to single family homes?

anon @ 11:42, that's downright subtle compared to one of the listings for a house for sale in my area. Right there, at the bottom of the listing available for public access view, it says that the owner will give the buyer's agent an additional 5k for getting their turd off their hands.

Of course, they've refused to move on price for about six months now.....hmm....wonder why it hasn't sold.....

I live in a Chicago suburb. I am a physician and a co-worker who is also a physician bought a house in Hoffman Estates for 1 million dollars and mind you, this was a 3500 square foot McMansion. He listed it at 1.2 M in September 2008 and he still doesn't get it. Last weekend, someone in his block put up a for sale sign and the other seller wants to sell his McMansion (same one, same style, same specs, etc...) for 600K. A lot of people are not realistic and they just can't believe that prices have declined substantially. So they feel that they can wait it out or someone else will come around and buy their property.

Here's the best part. Even if someone is stupid enough to offer the asking price (getting their hopes up), there's a 70-80% chance they won't qualify for the mortgage, or the house won't appraise, and they will be back to square one.

Those damned foreigners. We all know white people, the real Americans, weren't involved in the ponzi scheme.

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LMAO..."white people" engineered this whole thing. The foreigners are coming in to take advantage by buying up stakes in American banks. Citigroup brought in an Indian CEO to either be the fall guy when they fail or clean up the mess. I vote for fall guy.

Laguna Hills is mostly a huge retirement community called "Liesure World" us locals refer to it as "Siezure World"

Frank is right Laguna Hills is so bland in fact most all of South OC is bland, boring unless you can afford laguna Beach it all is high priced cookie cutter gated communites with high HOA fees and fake ass people.

I live in Huntington Beach aka "Surf City" in a paid for modern double wide mobile home across from the ocean and a few blocks from Downtown. I sold my overpriced oceanside/vista area crapbox home in 05 after a 6 year hold. So at least I dont have a mortgage and my space rent price is equivalent to a studio in OC inland

Those damned foreigners. We all know white people, the real Americans, weren't involved in the ponzi scheme.

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LMAO..."white people" engineered this whole thing. The foreigners are coming in to take advantage by buying up stakes in American banks. Citigroup brought in an Indian CEO to either be the fall guy when they fail or clean up the mess. I vote for fall guy.

February 17, 2008 9:26 PM

For your information, "Citigroup didn't bring in an Indian CEO. He is an American citizen, he has lived in the U.S. since he was 18 years old when he went to Columbia.

Now, if things work out, then he will become a corporate celebrity. If things fall apart, then he will be labeled as a loser.

OK... Joe6Pack & JaneZinfandel, let's get this simple, no brainer fact into that fried-burger brain one more time.

Owning a house is not for every one in the planet Earth, particularly in the land of the Americano AKA the land of the Snapper Turtle. If a person, a married couple or a family of chumps are poor, ignorant, uneducated, illiterate, buck-teeth, obese, fat, plain ugly or just looking like a piece of human crap, then that entity or organism is not entitled to own a house, or allowing to think of owning a house, or even dreaming of owning a house. Got it ? A very simple truthful fact to internalize based on Charles Darwin's famous theory: "You don't own jack if you ain't got jack to prove that you've got the jack to jack with..."

Furthermore, if that particular Americano had voted for "Little Boy + Fat Man" AKA "Dubya Shrub + Penis Shooter" in the last 8 years, then homeboy and homegirl HillBillies and Homer Simpson all alike out there should not consider a house as a place to live in. His and/or her adobe is to be in the horse ban, the chicken shack, the ass stall, or more fittingly, the Snapper Turtle lodge.

So, Hicks and CrackerNutheads out there, the 64 millions dollars question is:"Is the Americano roasted yet, and if not, how long before the Americano will be roasted slowly, nicely and juicely like a snapper turtle skewered on a Chinese bamboo stick from mouth to ass sizzling, fat popping on a bed of white hot charcoal ?"

However, it is fun to live in SOCAL and watch the non-natives treat something as potentially bankrupting as flipping residential houses like it was a game show with fake money. Hey, no wonder the dollar is going down, these clowns finally realized its no better than the fake paper that comes with the monopoly game...just printed nicer is all/////

This type of outrageous price reduction began here in Los Angeles County back in July of last year.

In fact, I saw some funny ones... the realtor would reduce the price and then two weeks later would increase the price higher than original listing. Most likely the homedebtors wanting more or both. Who knows. Don't care anymore.

Anonymous said... >>>if the laguna hills average household income is about $100k, shouldn't people spend about no more than $250k on a residence using traditional loan guidelines?February 17, 2008 11:01 AM==========================

You are absolutely right. The problems began when the lenders laxed their lending standards.

Before the roaring 2000s, lenders required 28-35% DTI (debt-to-income) ratios. During the good times lenders raised the DTI to 50-55%. This means your overall debt could be 55% of your total income.

This is why homedebtors are suffering when their rates adjust HIGHER. There is nothing left for food, clothing, gas etc. basic living expense. Their entire income is going to their mortgage.

Anonymous said... >>>Y2K prices? When this thing is said and done banks ain't gonna be lending any cash and those with money are going to be few and far between. This is going to get much worse than Y2K prices.February 17, 2008 5:35 PM=========================

Totally! We'll be able to buy PENNIES on the dollar down the road. NO JOKE!

The only thing is while the houses are sitting in Banking inventory, by the time they reach the market they will have been stripped down to the shell. So we will basically be paying for the land. So sad it's going to come down to this!

Princess Monooke said: In fact, I saw some funny ones... the realtor would reduce the price and then two weeks later would increase the price higher than original listing.

Hey Princess,I saw something just like that happening in North Florida. Dumb-Ass realtor didn't know that his original listing price (the lower price) was still on the local MLS WITH the higher price. LMAO on that one.

That place actually looks pretty nice. Santa Maria, CA has the ugliest, oldest houses that the sellers still want $200k and up, and they're in gangland type neighborhoods. If you don't speak spanish, don't come to Santa Maria, CA... in fact, if you're even thinking about moving to California, learn spanish, make sure your children are fluent in spanish, otherwise they'll be outcasts at school and you won't be able to find a job.

tater said...>>>was still on the local MLS WITH the higher price. LMAO on that one.February 19, 2008 3:26 AM========================

Totally! But the one's that I see continuously reducing and then increasing are ALL on ONE MLS listing... So you can actually see from one day to the next how schizophrenic these IDIOTS are! It's embarrassing to see...